The hostages are coming home. It will take 72 hours, possibly longer for some of the deceased, but it is happening. In the Israeli and Jewish ethos, this is a supreme moral and operational duty that underpins the Israeli fighting spirit and national resilience. Over the past year and a half, suspicions repeatedly emerged that the Prime Minister sabotaged mature deals for the hostages’ release. Today, that is behind us.
This is, first and foremost, an achievement of President Trump, who demonstrated determination to end the war and showed greater sensitivity to the hostages’ fate than Netanyahu did. As with his order to end the 12-day war with Iran, Trump seemed to dictate to Netanyahu what is good for Israel, against Netanyahu’s wishes. Trump also recruited Turkey to pressure Hamas. With Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah neutralized, and Hamas politically surrounded by its supporters—Qatar and Turkey, alongside Egypt which controls their “oxygen pipeline,” and the UAE and Saudi Arabia which hold the purse for Gaza’s reconstruction—Hamas had no choice but to submit.
Key partners in this struggle were the hostage families and the protest movement. Trump referred to their moving images from Tel Aviv repeatedly in his social media posts. Before us is proof of a painful truth: Israel and Netanyahu are not the same thing. Netanyahu’s government and Israel’s security-national interests are not in the same place. Citizens and leaders worldwide can support Israel or criticize its actions while simultaneously opposing Netanyahu and his government. Many Israeli patriots are in exactly that position.
The first four points of the agreement will likely be implemented in the next 72 hours. Implementation of the remaining 16 points could still go awry. One must hope that Trump’s determination will hold. Before us is an opportunity to end the war in Gaza, which includes replacing Hamas with an inter-Arab force, a technocratic government and Palestinian bureaucracy, under supervision of an international steering committee headed by Tony Blair.
In parallel, a new security force will be built, to which Hamas’s heavy weapons will be transferred, and reconstruction will begin with primarily Saudi and Emirati funding. Israel is supposed to insist on two conditions: first, no person who belonged to Hamas’s military wing can be a member of any organ of the new entity. Second, the withdrawal to the final line will occur only when agreed-upon security milestones are actually implemented. This arrangement could open a new chapter including normalization with Saudi Arabia, expansion of the Abraham Accords, and establishing the “economic corridor” from India through the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia to Israel and from there to Europe.
My assessment of Israel’s past two years includes the following observations:
First, October 7, 2023 created a compelling imperative for Israel to ensure that Hamas would never again rule Gaza or threaten Israel from there. The dismantling of Hamas and its defeat as a military organization was achieved over a year ago. What remains are guerrilla groups that blend into a sea of over two million Palestinians.
Second, following Hamas’s defeat, the IDF and intelligence agencies achieved impressive military accomplishments, including the blow dealt to Hamas, seizing the opportunity to destroy most of Syria’s military capabilities—paving the way for the blow dealt to Iran. The “ring of fire” that Iran wove around Israel has collapsed. The opportunity to declare an end to the war from a position of strength, to return all hostages in an agreement, and to implement a plan similar to the current one, has been on the table for many long months—some argue even a year or more.
Third, Netanyahu’s insistence on resuming fighting in Gaza to achieve absolute victory was never practical, as the United States learned in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Israel in the West Bank. This phase was defined by Chief of Staff Zamir as a “death trap for fighters and hostages” and by security veterans as a “War of deception” unrelated to state security, whose sole purpose is to save Netanyahu’s coalition and secure his survival in power. The battle itself, alongside declarations by government ministers about “no innocents in Gaza,” calls for “voluntary transfer” of Gazans, demanding prevention of humanitarian aid, “flattening” of cities, and establishing Israeli settlements in the Strip—all of these together with the images arriving daily from Gaza—have entangled Israel in suspicions of war crimes, a wave of antisemitism, diplomatic isolation whose peak was at the UN General Assembly and in the initiative to recognize a Palestinian state while bypassing negotiations with Israel, and the beginning of economic, cultural, and sports boycotts. A wave of hostility toward Israel has risen among the younger generation worldwide and doubts among young Jews. The recklessness of Netanyahu’s government has smeared on Israel’s face a stain that will be difficult to erase even with a generation’s effort. For the first time since its establishment, question marks are being raised about the very legitimacy of the State of Israel.
Fourth, David Ben-Gurion coined the dictum: “Israel’s existence stands on its strength and its righteousness.” Its strength—the military-strategic and technological capabilities that made the IDF the strongest army in the Middle East. Its righteousness—the determination to hold the “moral high ground.” Netanyahu systematically ignored this imperative and thus dragged Israel into its current predicament. The original perpetrators are the murderous Hamas, but the challenge is beyond the antisemitism that has always existed. The problem arose from the encounter between this antisemitic predisposition, the reckless actions of the government and the results on the ground.
Fifth, Israel will be required to demand accountability from all players. A state commission of inquiry headed by a Supreme Court justice should have already been established two years ago. Netanyahu blocked it in order to survive in power. Only self-initiated investigations of all deviations from the laws of war, executed by an independent judicial system, alongside inquiry by a state commission, will stop the momentum to bring Israel’s leaders and senior IDF officials to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Powerful elements in Hamas and among Palestinians see a different picture. In their view, Netanyahu, through his “War of Deception,” converted Hamas’s military defeat into an unprecedented diplomatic-political achievement of returning the Palestinian issue to center stage globally, as if a Palestinian state can be established without negotiations with Israel but by international recognition alone.
Netanyahu behaves like a gambler who in his desperation doubles down again and again. He will try to survive at any cost, and many fear that even free and fair elections are not guaranteed as long as he remains in power. Regarding his fitness to stand for election, I will use his own quotes about his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, following the 2006 war with Lebanon. Netanyahu said: “A nation’s life cannot be the personal survival track of a prime minister who has failed.” And on another occasion: “To say that the one who failed and bungled is also the one who will fix it is like asking that the captain of the Titanic, had he survived, be the one to receive command of the company’s new ship.”
The signing of the agreement between Israel and Hamas in Sharm el-Sheikh marked a day of realized hopes for millions in Israel, exactly two years after the darkest day in the state’s history and in Jewish history since the Holocaust.
What Israel needs today, as it opens this new chapter, is a new leadership of honest people who believe in a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic Israel, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Who aspire to serve the public and Israel’s security and future, not only themselves. Leadership that has the courage to make decisions and the strength to implement them. Leadership that believes that at the foundation of any successful human society stands the triangle of courage, truth, and trust. Establishing such leadership and marching confidently with it into the future—this is the mission of our generation. And by it we shall be judged.
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